Day after European Parliament votes against ACTA, Obama expresses support

March 10, 2010. In the Guardian: Ari Emanuel, the co-chief executive of William Morris Endeavor, the biggest Hollywood talent agency, was among several executives attending a meeting in Abu Dhabi, calling for governments to get tough on illegal downloading.

Emanuel, the brother of US presidential adviser Rahm, said the industry was talking to the US government in a bid to introduce a "three strikes and you're out" law to govern illegal downloading.
"We are in the midst of talking to the president and some attorney generals and [we are] trying to implement a three strikes and you're out rule," he added.

He suggested that there would be a "fight with ISPs" (internet service providers) over the subject. France last year introduced a similar rule which allowed legal action once internet users had downloaded illegally three times.

March 10, 2010. European Parliament votes 633 to 13 in favor of a resolution condemning ACTA secrecy and restrictions on consumer and civil rights. (more here).

What’s more, we’re going to aggressively protect our intellectual property. Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people. It is essential to our prosperity and it will only become more so in this century. But it’s only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can’t just steal that idea and duplicate it with cheaper inputs and labor. There’s nothing wrong with other people using our technologies, we welcome it –- we just want to make sure that it’s licensed, and that American businesses are getting paid appropriately. That’s why USTR is using the full arsenal of tools available to crack down on practices that blatantly harm our businesses, and that includes negotiating proper protections and enforcing our existing agreements, and moving forward on new agreements, including the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.